Passam aiming high, principal says

Passam National High School in East Sepik, one of Papua New Guinea’s four pioneer high schools, has had its fair share of glory and tragedy and is now determined to be one of the best schools in Papua New Guinea. The school recently celebrated the graduation of 224 students at its 35th graduation ceremony, where principal Raymond Bakavi gave a positive report that since 2014, the school has improved in academic performance and discipline was ranked seventh last year, among the top schools in the country. Bakavi said Passam’s desire was to be the best national high school in the country in academic achievement. The school is expecting to improve last year’s ranking by making it into the top five national high schools. Bakavi said last year, the school achieved a 97 per cent placement rates in universities and tertiary institutions around the country and it was expected to have 100 per cent placement from this graduating class. He said he was determined to make Passam the country’s top national high school but needed support to achieve its goal. Bakavi said the school needed at least K10 million to build modern facilities, including a fully-equipped science laboratory. There are also plans for a piggery and poultry farm for students to gain from practical education. Minister for National Planning and Monitoring Richard Maru, who was guest of honour at graduation last week, said he was happy with the positive report and said that the Government was serious about improving the quality of education. He pledged K1 million in government support to build a new science laboratory to help the school achieve its goals in quality education. “We want to improve the quality of education in all the national high schools and it doesn’t help that we have run-down facilities,” he said. Maru announced that the first K200,000 of the K1 million promised would be given early next week. The school’s governing council chairman, Daniel Yakeri, said the school needed financial support to build more dormitories, classrooms, a library and other facilities to cater for the growing number of students.